Friday, April 27, 2012

Sixpoint - Bengali Tiger

We spent much of our first day in Boston recovering from a delayed red eye flight that I'd rather not go into too much detail about. After lunch and a quick walk around our hotel, we took an epic nap and by the time night came around, I was feeling pretty ready to go and pumped to try some new beer. We ended up going to dinner at a place called Parish Cafe, which just so happened to have a fantastic beer selection. After trying a beer that was way up on my list, Sam Adams 26.2 (check out my Sam Adams Beers review for that one), it was time to try a beer I'd heard a lot of good things about: Sixpoint's Bengali Tiger.

Sixpoint is a brewery located in Brooklyn, New York that was founded by Shane C. Welch in 2004. Despite being a pretty young brewery, Sixpoint has a great reputation for making some quality craft beers, particularly IPAs. Bengali Tiger is their self proclaimed "homebrewed IPA interpretation" and, like many of Sixpoints offerings, comes in a can. Sweet! Alright, let's get on to the important stuff.

Bengali Tiger pours a rich copper color with a thin off-white head and leaves some slight traces of lacing down the glass. One sniff of this beer and I was in love. I picked up a huge amount of piny hops, hop resin and lots of grapefruit pith. This beer smelled right up my alley.

The taste is chock full of grapefruit pith and it's both intensely bitter and absolutely delicious. Pine sap and resin reinforce the bitterness through the middle of the beer before a touch of orange and malt sweetness give your palate a bit of a break. Despite the high levels of bitterness, this beer is dangerously drinkable. This beer is an absolute hop bomb and one of the tastier ones out there. If you come across this beer, it's really one you shouldn't miss out on.